My Birthday

My host parents and me

Flowers on top of my cake
that I made in my cooking
class

 Yesterday was my birthday-- I turned 17! My host family had a great party for me and my host mom made me a wonderful doughnut shaped cake with dulce de leche frosting and chocolate chips inside, as well as frosting flowers on top that I made in my cooking class here. All my friends from school came over and we ate lots of foods and different cakes, played cards, and listened to music. My liaison from AFS came over and had made me a coconut cake. Another lady from AFS came over and brought me high end dulce de leche that she tells me I am not allowed to share with my family. My family gave me some jogging pants that all the girls wear here, and my parents even managed to send beautiful flowers, even though they live in Utah and don´t speak Spanish :). I also got their package today, with a singing card, a picture of them, perfume, gum, earrings, and a summer reading book. Love you all!

The cake my host mom made me! Vanilla cake,
with chocolatechips and dulce de leche
 frosting. I made the flowers on top in my
cooking class.

Little toasted bread things that they
call chips here

My cake and me !

The coconut cake my AFS liaison made for me

Playing cards after having cake

Group photo!

Outside in the yard

Lots of cakes!

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One of my dogs. And his stick.

Little sandwiches for actual food--ham, cheese, and tomato

My parents sent these! They did it online, and they´re from
a florist in Argentina! Amazing!

¡Felíz Cumpleaños!

Chopping vegetables for salad.
My family is helping me learn to cook
 for when I return to the USA, and I´m
probably going to get a book of recipes
 before then as well.

Learning to iron! My mom was utterly
shocked when I said I didn´t know how,
and I´mlearning all about the house right now.

My mom blowing out the candles on the
last of her many birthday cakes.

A quiche thing that my mom made for
 dinner the other night-- very yummy!

The Argentines but a lot of salt on food and
 almost no pepper. Guess which one is which.

The ladies´ table, complete with some of
 the many delicious dishes we had.

I don´t know if you can see these or not, but they are tiaras.
That you can buy in bulk. Yes, they sell tiaras in bulk
but not stationery.

My mom holding yet another cake, a cheesecake
with red jello on top and a strawberry filling.

One of the glorious cakes we had a taste of. That is meringue
 on top with crystallized sugar, with dulce de leche
in the center as well as crisp cake.

Another thing that they sell in the stores we went to
 in search of stationery. Those are glass blown swans.
 And they don´t know what stationery even is.

Another glorious cake, chocolate and dulce de leche.

The men´s table, with lots of beer and peanut shells.

Thursday was my host mom´s birthday and we had a party on Friday. The Argentines really know how to party as well as their food. There were six birthday cakes, empanadas, pizza, two different types of sandwiches, brownies, ice cream, pie, cherry tart, peach tart, peanuts, lots of alcohol, four types of soda, five types of bread, four different salads, crackers, mate, tedede, noodles, and three types of cookies. There were   maybe forty guests in total. All the cakes were handmade, from scratch, and all had dulce de leche, since this is a law in Argentina. I also went on a fruitless journey for stationery so I can actually write all of you real letters, but this literally doesn´t exist in Latin America. I have gone to at least twelve stores in the past week, and everyone sort of looks at me like I´m insane. I eventually got colored paper and envelopes to just write on substitute stationery.

Life is life

A delicious pizza--in the form of a cone! Oh my God, what a                                                                                                           brilliant advertisement! Everything is so much better in the shape                                                                                               of a cone!

My cute little brother eating what may be the most unhealthy food known to man--                                                                      dulce de leche (caramel) with  a ball of meringue sugar.

Alfajores-- a cookie sandwich with dulce de leche and caramel 

Dinner of antipasta

Ice cream cake-- dulce de leche in the middle with cake parts, dulce de leche ice cream, and                                                  tiramisu ice cream, all covered in hardened chocoate, frosting, and almonds

My flower I made in my cooking class!

All my flowers (made of frosting) that I learned to make in cooking!

My sisters and I outside my aunt´s apartment, with the night                                                                                            background of downtown Santa Rosa

Cute toothpicks for dinner (antipasta)  from Northern ARgentina, shaped like little llamas

Walking down the street in Santa Rosa 

Symphony and Watching Deer

The women of our family

Grey fox in the wildlife reserve

Night view of downtown Santa Rosa

                              Don´t know if this video of the symphonic band is actually going to work . . .

Outside the local concert hall

Inside the concert hall

The other night, my parents and oldest sister went to the local concert hall with me and we saw the Symphonic Band of La Pampa perform. They were very good, and the hall was a decent size, designed in a similar fashion to Capitol Theatre in Salt Lake (for everyone who has been) and only a little bit smaller. They played typical songs of Argentina (Don´t Cry for Me, Argentina) as well as more popular songs, such as a medley of ABBA songs (Dancing Queen, Money, Mamma Mia, etc.). Then we went out for dinner at a little restaurant near the theatre and had toasted sandwiches, so by the time we got home it was about one in the morning (and we still had school the next morning). Ah, well. Tonight we went to a local wildlife reservation and had a picnic of delicious Argentine pastries as well as tedede (cold mate) before going on a guided tour to see (and especially hear) the extraordinary mating season of deer. We saw them chasing after one another and making loud grunts as a sign of how masculine they happened to be, since this is of course the prime factor in a woman´s choice of mate--precisely how loud he can grunt. It was a lot of fun and we also saw foxes and this odd type of boar with a long flat snout. The boar crossed the road in front of our car with two babies, which were adorable, and it was a very unique looking animal.

Tango and the Disco

Last week, I had my first tango lesson and met the other exchange student in my city that I have been emailing, and it was a huge relief to be able to talk English normally for once. The instructor is very patient and nice, but insists that tango is just like walking, so anyone that can walk can easily learn to tango. I am a bit skeptical of this. Tango is also very touchy: I don´t think I´ve ever been that close to a man in my life, especially one about ten years older than me who I just met when we don´t speak the same language. It was a lot of fun, and an old lady learning for the first time as well came over and started chatting with me while I nodded and smiled, and then we learned the basic tango step together. Yesterday, I went to my first boliche, which is like a nightclub for minors. They are a lot more liberal with alcohol laws here; I saw many people my age simply go up and buy a beer as long as they had the money, and there was so much cigarrette smoke it was hard to see. My host sister and I went with friends from school, and one friend came over about midnight (half an hour after dinner) to start getting ready, with hair, makeup, and fancy clothes. We left the house about one, but since this is far too early to actually arrive at a disco (boliche), we went to a little restaurant and had a soda until about two, and then went to the boliche. It was just like in the movies--smoke everywhere, loud bass pumping so you had to scream a centimeter from a person´s ear to have any hope of being heard, and lots of dancing. Unfortunately I couldn´t take pictures the first time because it is too risky of theft, but perhaps another time; I saw other girls with cameras. We left the disco at about six thirty in the morning, came home, had breakfast, and went to bed about seven. Then we slept in for a while and got up around two thirty in the afternoon for lunch.